It's not BIKRAM

I went to Bikram tonight - its a type of hot yoga. I heard that the actual Bikram himself, the yoga guy, was suing people for calling yoga "Bikram" when it wasn't exactly following his script. That doesn't exactly seem very Zen - like to me, but whatever. So my husband and I make fun of him by yelling "It's not Bikram" randomly whenever I talk about it.

If you've never been to Bikram, its 90 minutes in a room that's about 115 degrees of 26 yoga poses. This sounds like hell to a lot of people I've described it to, and it sort of is at parts, but you feel amazing after. Now I'm sure I've sold you all on it. The picture below is a little glimpse of one of the poses, and that's actually exactly what I look like when I do it.



To give you another peek into the world of Bikram, when I was pulling into the parking lot, I saw a woman with a yoga mat and thought to myself "Hi, Stranger. I'm going to be staring at you almost naked soon".  I think there was one other woman besides me who had their stomach covered today.

Bikram is really weird because the instructor just sits up front narrating what to do from an exactly script, not doing any of the moves, so your best bet is to pick out someone who looks really "yogini" early on and just try to do what they do. The script is....I tried to think of another way to say really weird, but it's late. Let's just say I don't know how to open my chest like a flower and I don't exactly picture Indian Yogi's conducting class on the ashram saying "Your back is going to hurt like hell". But Bikram is probably a billionaire right now, whereas I am throwing away my hard earned money so someone can order me to do something that makes my back hurt like hell....so really who's the idiot here?

Wow, I'm really not making much of a convincing argument for Bikram here. It's a really tough workout that tones your muscles and gets your heart rate up, and I would have never believed yoga could do that. Whenever my muscles are sore from running, after Bikram I feel like a new person. Of course, immediately after I feel so dehydrated that I am completely delirious....

The sad thing is I got a LivingSocial deal for 5 classes and I only have one left, and the monthly pass probably costs more than my car. So its back to OnDemand yoga for me after that.


In other news I am reading The Historian
which I highly recommend. But its all about vampires
and gave me nightmares all night.  Fingers crossed I can dream like a normal adult this time.